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Carl Menger: The Nature and Origin of Money

In the early stages of trade, when economizing individuals are only slowly awakening to knowledge of the economic gains that can be derived from exploitation of existing exchange opportunities, their attention is, in keeping with the simplicity of all cultural beginnings, directed only to the most obvious of these opportunities.

**The following essay was written by the father of Austrian Economics, Carl Menger, and was published in 1892. “The Nature and Origin of Money” was originally published after Menger testified before the Currency Commission in Austria-Hungary the same year. The essay is reprinted here on Bitcoin.com for historical preservation. The Austrian school of economics, Bitcoin, and other free-market, permissionless cryptocurrencies have a lot in common. The opinions expressed in this essay are the…